At many parties and events where food and beverages are served, there may be insufficient tables and chairs to accommodate all invited guests. In these cases, guests are usually tasked with holding a plate of food and a beverage while standing and attempting to eat the food and drink the beverage with only two hands. This typically results in an almost impossible balancing task or having to find a place to set down the beverage in order to eat the food. Napkins and eating utensils also contribute to this common party dilemma experienced by almost everyone.
Numerous efforts have been made toward solving this dilemma by combining a plate with a means for holding the beverage. Each of these efforts have various shortcomings that provide particular limitations for the combined plate and beverage holder. These shortcomings have usually involved the design and location of the beverage holder in relation to the plate and resulted in two basic solutions. First, if the bottom of the beverage container sits at the level of the plate to allow the apparatus to sit flat on a table, the center of gravity of the beverage container extends far above the plate, and, if not securely held by the beverage holder extending considerably above the surface of the plate, is unstable and prone to tipping and spilling. The large difference in various diameters of beverage containers further exacerbates this problem of securely holding the beverage container in an upright fashion. Second, if the bottom of the beverage container sits below the level of the plate to solve the tipping and spilling problem noted above, the plate must have legs or other means of elevation to raise it so that the plate and beverage holder can be placed on the table without tilting the plate and spilling the beverage within the beverage holder.
Each of these two solutions significantly increase the space required for the integrated plate and beverage holder in a cabinet, drawer, or dishwasher because of the extension of the beverage holder above or below the plate. Additionally, without a handle of some sort, the combined weight of the plate filled with food and a beverage container within the beverage holder makes the apparatus both heavy and awkward to carry with one hand.
Prior art solutions have attempted to address these issues using a telescoping beverage holder configured similarly to a large collapsible cup. However, such collapsing configurations suffer from several problems that greatly diminish their usefulness for this purpose. First, most collapsing beverage holders utilize a number of conically shaped tapering sidewalls (“hollow frustums”), each successively decreasing in diameter. A hollow frustum of a cone (truncated cone) is a shape similar to a cylinder, except that the circular end planes are of unequal sizes and each of the circular end planes' center points are positioned directly above each other. This design creates a draft angle that requires the circular area of the top opening to be quite large in relation to the circular area required for the beverage container to rest flat on the floor of the bottom sidewall. Second, the various coupling mechanisms generally used for collapsible beverage holders are either (a) a friction fit between the two adjacent sidewalls, or (b) a flange on the top of one sidewall that fits over a ledge on the bottom of another sidewall. Each of these methods further increase the draft angle required for the sidewalls, and thus further increase the area of the top opening which decreases the stability of the beverage container while in the beverage holder. Third, the draft angle must be yet further increased for both methods in order to provide sufficient clearance between the frustums to prevent binding, catching, and locking up as the frustums are collapsed or un-collapsed, causing tilting of the bottom frustum. This is fatal to the desired function as it results in tilting the beverage container and spilling its contents as the plate is either lifted from or placed on a table.
Thus, prior art solutions in practice require a draft angle so large for acceptable functioning of their collapsible beverage holders that the beverage container can tilt and spill even within their collapsible holders, whether collapsed or un-collapsed. It also requires significantly more surface area of the plate be devoted to the telescoping beverage holder, thereby increasing the size, weight, and cost of the combined plate and beverage holder. Fourth, both coupling mechanisms, friction fit and flange, operate only as a limit to telescopic extension of the sidewalls. Neither coupling mechanism in practice prevents rotation of the sidewalls, which allows the plate to spin around the axis of the sidewalls, resulting in spilling both food and beverage. Fifth, neither coupling mechanism, friction fit or flange, prevents tilting of the sidewalls with respect to each other and the plate, thereby causing instability for both the plate and food as well as the beverage. The friction fit requires significant pressure to actually lock the sidewalls in place and can then be very difficult to dislodge in order to unlock and collapse the sidewall. The inherent design of the flanges either suffers from the same problem or is free to tilt with little interference. Sixth, both coupling mechanisms, friction fit and flange, operate only to prevent extension of the sidewalls beyond a specified point as they extend downward from the largest sidewall. However, when collapsing the sidewalls, there is no limiting constraint and the smaller sidewalls can separate from the larger sidewalls, coming completely apart and possibly lost.